How should employability providers build partnerships with local stakeholders?

Blog posts

28 Apr 2025

Harry Fox, Research Officer

Building constructive relationships with local stakeholders who have an interest in skills, health, employability and the labour market in their area is crucial for all employability services.

IES recently undertook research on behalf of the ReAct partnership of eight prime providers delivering the Restart contract to understand how strong local partnerships can best be built, embedded, and maintained. We uncovered many positive examples of good practice and strong relationships and learned much about the enabling factors underpinning that success, as well as suggestions for improvement. Much of this is applicable beyond Restart, and the lessons have value within the context of a government focusing on a greater degree of local devolution and commissioning of employment support. Put simply, tailoring support to local areas and maintaining strong local relationships will become even more important in future.

We saw the power that strong partnerships between employability services and local stakeholders have to enhance the participant experience. We interviewed a Combined Authority which ran digital inclusion training sessions, and a Restart partnership enabled participants to access support and improve their digital skills, building confidence with navigating online job search, and performing day-to-day activities like online banking and video-calls with friends and relatives. Another provider is working with their local council and local support organisations to map out support available for refugees, ensuring their participants get the right help they need to enter sustainable employment.

But other opportunities to work in partnership have been missed. One local authority has worked with a local hospitality business to run bespoke training courses and offer guaranteed interviews for unemployed local residents in need of a helping hand. But Restart participants are currently missing out on this because the provider in that town has not built a relationship with their council, and as a result the council is unsure how they can add value or work together.

Partnerships between providers and local stakeholders provide benefits beyond training schemes. Local stakeholders broker relationships with employers; local authorities support other issues facing jobseekers through their housing teams; there are local charities with drug and alcohol counselling expertise. Working with JobCentre Plus Districts enables the organisation of large-scale job fairs to get even more people into work. Combined Authorities and the successors to Local Enterprise Partnerships can provide labour market information and help providers understand future opportunities in their local area.

So, how can strong partnerships best be built and maintained?

• Get the basics right. In our research, partners with strong relationships with Restart often attributed this to simple factors such as the provider having a general openness and willingness to collaborate, keeping them informed, having regular meetings in the diary, and their contact replying promptly to telephone calls and emails. A regular dialogue will mean employability providers are aware of opportunities for collaboration and the challenges being faced in the local area.
• Provide local, relevant information. The stakeholders we interviewed appreciated the specific, localised information they received about the area they cover, rather than more general comments about the entire contract. For example, we observed one provider delivering a presentation to partners which included specific coverage of the activities happening at the site, the numbers of people accessing certain training courses, and reflections on the types, and changes in the challenges participants are presenting with at the local site.
• Provide a ‘call to action’ to stakeholders. Ensure partners have a good understanding of how exactly they can support employability provision in delivering positive outcomes for participants and their local area. In particular, being open about the challenges currently being faced can help partners understand opportunities for collaboration. For example, a provider struggling to connect with employers in a particular sector may find their Combined Authority are able to help.
• Involve local staff, not just a centralised partnership function. Some providers talked about utilising their local, ‘on-the-ground’ staff in partnership building, identifying that they will likely have a better understanding of the activities being delivered at their site, what is being achieved, and the challenges faced than those in centralised, partner-focused roles. They have therefore tapped into that local expertise to better inform and collaborate with partners. Some local staff also have existing positive relationships with relevant local stakeholders based on their career working within employability locally.
• Expand the relationship beyond a 1:1 dialogue. While strong one-to-one relationships are often the bedrock of effective organisational associations, this can leave providers exposed if an individual moves on. Some providers have involved other individuals, such as advisers from local offices and employer engagement teams, in regular meetings and collaboration with partners. This allows for much broader relationships to be built. Providers should also consider ways to build relationships with other individuals from their partner organisations as well as their main contact.
• Remain visible. Partnership building and collaboration is something to be consistently invested in over the duration of the contract; it cannot just be done at the start. The providers we interviewed had staff members dedicated to maintaining the relationship by attending regular meetings and relevant employability forums. Some providers even created these forums where they did not previously exist.
• Invite stakeholders to visit the site. Some of the stakeholders we interviewed were keen to visit their local office. This can help build broader relationships and also give them a closer look at the types of activities that go on at the site.

Sometimes, it’s even more simple than that. Opening a dialogue with partners is always the first step towards a great partnership. Often, an effective collaboration will produce results greater than the sum of its parts.

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Any views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Institute as a whole.